taylorlb

There should be an option for page owners to clean their likes based on engagement if they want to.

Armen Boladian isn't quite just a "former record producer". He founded and ran Westbound records who put out the majority of George Clinton's music and many other groups.

rate limiting would increase it's usefulness

It's great to hear someone talk about this. I've struggled with the same situation my entire life. When I was a kid I was constantly told by adults how bright I was, that I could do anything if I applied myself, and it became this odd burden despite the clear advantages of whatever smarts I may possess.

I've always wondered what my adult life would be like if a different perspective had been pushed on me as a child. Something different than 'you should be doing this at this level because you're so bright, you can do X without much effort even'. I'm hoping to not make the same mistake with my child.

I've really enjoyed talking to my family and strangers about their irrational fears that exist around children. It's incredibly fascinating to me. That said, I have been totally terrified to board an airplane for the last 3 years (use to fly once a month) so I don't have much of a leg to stand on.

My relatives keep mentioning the possibility of my son being stolen, which seems absurd to me. I was very curious what the real odds of your child being stolen by a stranger in the US are.

EDIT: The post motivated me to do some quick Googling... one article I found said there are roughly 40 children abducted by strangers or slight acquaintances in the US annually which would make your child "700 times more likely to get into Harvard than to be the victim of such an abduction".

Very likely true! It's complicated and murky indeed. He may own a good part of the song that he has created, but not enough to ever see it released without a claim from the Mix-A-Lot song publishers.

See my comment and link above.

From Section 115 of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act...

(2) A compulsory license includes the privilege of making a musical arrangement of the work to the extent necessary to conform it to the style or manner of interpretation of the performance involved, but the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work, and shall not be subject to protection as a derivative work under this title, except with the express consent of the copyright owner.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#115

EDIT: to be clear, a compulsory license is what Harry Fox grants you.

Very not-straightforward. A compulsory mechanical license to distribute a derivative work as a sound recording does not automatically grant you copyright over the derivative arrangement of the song itself. You kind of own the sound you recorded (you pay a statutory publishing rate, which is around 10 cents, per unit sold to the songwriters, which the Harry Fox Agency collects and distributes on behalf of the music publishing industry) but you don't actually own the song.

That said, it's most certainly not nice/cool/ethical to steal non-copyrighted arrangements simply because someone can't sue you.

Speculating... but a statutory license is not equal to a copyright in this case.

While it would have been nice for Glee to acknowledge Jonathan's influence, an arranger can only claim copyright when the original songwriter has granted that privilege to said arranger, which I don't believe was the case when Coulton recorded his cover.

When they originally made the change from 'fan' to 'like' in 2010 I thought it was enough of an issue to write something about it. It wasn't a very popular complaint at the time though.

http://shufferingandshnacking.com/?p=255

This is a good example of the fundamental attribution error. The author seems to mistake his coming of age and discovering a world of available music for the rise of independent music and endless consumer choice. Independent labels have flourished since the beginning of recorded music, technology has simply easier to get to their product and much cheaper for them to reach their listeners.

Technology has had countless positive effects on musicians and the recorded music industry but in terms of people who finance the production of recorded music, be it artists themselves or big companies, 'free' music has not been much of a step forward. The only one that comes to mind is the sharp reduction in cost of allowing potential fans to hear music before they buy it, but this also irrevocably blurred the lines of what is free and what should be require a payment.

The headline is a bit misleading for what is actually a somewhat interesting study on the effect of leaks on album sales (rather than post-release piracy on music sales in general). I've long believed that a leak of a great album can help generate buzz and ultimately sales for a new record since the people who would be most likely to evangelize the record would also be the same people who would be most excited to download it pre-release. It goes both ways though, a leak that exposes a record as being sub-par pre-release can have a devastating effect.

and not just monetarily free, but free from ownership by any one interest or group

The buzz/concern about the merger is semi-premature. Universal will be fighting for years in order to pass regulatory in the EU. IMPALA, who tied up the Sony/BMG merger for 3 years, is dead set on blocking the UNI/EMI merger: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storyco...

Who knows what the industry will look like in 3 years. UNI might even decide to bail on the deal by then.

EDIT: changed the link to a non-paywall one

Really cool. I get that the Twitter usernames come in with the lyric "they're calling me" but it might be more sticky if the usernames show up sooner. Not sure everyone would want to keep flying around for so long.

He was one of the initial people to offer funding to the founders apparently.

Will be a useful feature for notable people that have a 'profile' and a 'page' and don't want to manage two properties. Now you can have as many 'followers' as nature will allow, where as you could only have 5k 'friends'.

That said, I think Facebook is trying too hard to be everything to everyone, which is a turn off for me.

I actually know one of the people hiring the position and have traded a couple emails with him about my interest. I also had someone he respects recommend me so perhaps I'm already doing better than I thought I was.

I put the ads on hold after reading a couple of these comments since no one seemed to have a "totally. go for it" response. For what it's worth, the CTR was actually really high. Hope those who clicked did so with a smile.

It's a marketing position. I don't expect much to come from running ads, but I am curious to see if it can give me some sort of mind share advantage perhaps. Maybe someone unrelated to the position sees it and then emails someone who is involved in that dept pointing out how "this guy is really eager". I'm more than qualified for the position, but I'm concerned it's so competative I'll get lost in the noise.

I get the Zuckerberg quote, but Demi Moore endorsing the product can't be relevant to anyone who might request an invite to a just launching music service.

I got a notice from Amazon as well. Though they specifically said they plan to terminate if and when the law passes, so the program (at least at AMZN) isn't dead quite yet.

The headline seems a bit alarmist to me. Is Facebook itself not essentially also an ad targeting firm with millions of profiles?

Except that no one company could ever get approved by regulators in the US or EU to purchase ALL the major music companies. It would be extremely unlikely that Google would even get approved to purchase the two that are up for sale already.

and then after you've been paying for a subscription for 3 years and you decide you are happy with version X for the time being, you won't be able to continue using it if you stop paying. From the Subscription FAQ:

If I cancel my subscription, does that mean I can still use my software, and that I just won’t receive updates for the most current version?

No. When you cancel your subscription you will no longer have access to any version of your Creative Suite subscription software.

I think the paths are similar, but there is a key difference for me: YouTube's success didn't initially 100% rely on using other peoples copyrighted works without permission or compensation. No doubt music videos etc. helped immensely but funny cat videos and other amateur goofy content was a big part of its success. Whereas with Grooveshark, I am fairly confident that amateur authorized content doesn't factor into the equation.

That said, if the major music rights holders would just license to them from the start at affordable rates they wouldn't need to violate copyright so I suppose it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

Enjoying reading the book so far, but also worth checking out, and what turned me on to it in the first place, is Freeman Dyson's review in NY Books.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/how-we-...

Not entirely accurate actually. All of Metallica's records came out (at least in North America, not sure about the rest of the world) under the Warner Music Group umbrella, which is what Sean is allegedly bidding on. Going all the way back to Master of Puppets they were signed in NA to Elektra Records, which is owned by WMG, and then more recently Warner Bros. Records (they moved them to WBR when Elektra briefly closed about 10 years ago), which is also owned by WMG.

Technically, if Sean and co. was to successfully purchase Warner Music Group, they would be in control of the company that has negotiated rights to Metallica's records, at least for the time being. So it is actually kind of a (potentially) juicy story.